Tabletop Game /
Flames Of War

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Flames of War is a New Zealand-based miniature wargame set in World War II. Using 15mm soldiers (roughly 1:100 scale) and vehicles, the game represents a company-sized angle of battle. Created by New Zealand-based Battlefront Miniatures, it is currently in its fourth edition.

This tabletop wargame provides examples of:

Action Girl: The Soviets have a few of their real life examples as special warrior teams.

Arbitrary Maximum Range: A real Tiger tank's effective range was over 3,500 feet. The game's scale and competitive balance has reduced the maximum range to just over 333 feet. Invoked due to being able to hit something that's at the other end of a house wouldn't be that much fun.

Author Appeal: Across all three editions, eleven sourcebooks have been released regarding the Normandy campaign. Operation Bagration is slowly getting this way, too, with a Firestorm campaign boxset and five books across the editions.

In a sort of Real Life example, look at how many models of Sherman tank variations have been released.

Badass Army: They're somewhat rare, but a Fearless Veteran army can certainly apply. Especially if you manage to spend your points correctly.

Big Bad Ass Battle Sequence: If an area has several players, expect a large scale Mega Battle to occur at least once. Usually, they're based off of real battles.

Calling Your Shots: Difficult to do, but possible if you pass a skill test. Otherwise, hits are allotted to the platoon and are doled out by the opposing player.

In 4th edition, this becomes the norm, as players are allowed to pick which units of an enemy platoon are hit. It's up the defending player to pass a skill test under certain conditions to change some of the hits.

The Greatest History Never Told: Averted, as there are sourcebooks for almost every major part of the war, even if it did take a while to get to the Pacific Theater.

Last Stand: A game can end like this if you're parked on top of an objective.

Luck Manipulation Mechanic: The British special rule semi-indirect fire along with the Soviet vehicle specific rule "Cat Killer" allows a player (whose tank hasn't moved and is more than 16" away from their target to reroll their first miss on a die roll to hit. One of the German "Tiger Ace" skills does the same thing.

The Protected Ammo rule allows a reroll for a stricken tank crew to remount their vehicle after a close call.

Obvious Rule Patch: The US tank destroyer rules were rewritten in the middle of the third edition, eliminating most of the concerns about "Romulan Hellcats decloaking".

No Swastikas: The German gaming set (including dice and tokens) uses the Iron Cross.

The Finnish, however, do have swastikas to represent them.

Promotional Powerless Piece of Garbage: While not technically powerless, the yearly tournament prizes and exclusives take the form of objective pieces to capture and have no in-game benefit.

Recycled In Space: Battlefront released several spin-off games taking place in different time periods.

Spin-Off: Gale Force Nine's Tanks game is this to Flames of War, using individually packaged plastic tank sprues to create a smaller scaled game reminiscent of Tabletop/X-Wing. Due to the price difference between the resin and metal Flames of War blisters and the plastic blisters ($10.00 compared to $13.00) several gamers have taken to buying Tanks blisters for individual tanks.

Zerg Rush: Early war Soviet armies have extremely cheap infantry and tanks. In a 1500 pt game, you can have 120 bases of pure infantry/heavy machine guns on the board.

We Have Reserves: Some Soviet battalions have the Wave Attack rule, which allows you to replace a destroyed platoon with a new one depending on a die roll.

Due to Soviets' vehicles lack of smoke launchers, some players may make due by sending numerous throwaway vehicles to get killed and have the burning wreckage substitute.

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